Do You Want to Know a Secret? (31 page)

The first three stories were recaps of earlier reported news—President Grayson’s physical exam results, the announcement of an economic summit scheduled for late summer, and the end of a labor strike. She didn’t have time to read the last spot as the stage manager signaled that they were coming out of commercial.

Eliza started to talk into the camera, routinely reading her copy. Most of the people in the studio watched Eliza on one of several monitors scattered around the room. Joy turned her head and was watching Eliza herself as the anchorwoman began the last story.

“Residents of an exclusive Upper East Side Manhattan neighborhood are stunned this morning by the street murder of a prominent New York physician. Dr. Leo Karas—” Eliza stopped, her eyes squinting unbelievingly at the Teleprompter before her.

There was dead silence in the studio. Everyone was staring at her.

She struggled to begin again. “Dr. Leo Karas, a psychiatrist and author, was the apparent victim of a robber’s gun as he was walking home from his East Side office early this morning. Police are investigating. That’s it for this half hour. Now back to Harry and Senator and Mrs. Wingard.”

Her face flushed and heart pounding, she pulled out her earpiece, unclipped her microphone and walked quickly out of the studio.

Chapter 62

It was easy
to hire a locksmith to open the apartment, and make a new set of keys.

I could have dropped it anywhere. The little silver key ring, where could it have gone? It could be anywhere.

Please, God. Let it be anywhere but on East Eightieth Street.

That key ring could be easily traced.

Chapter 63

In the desperate
, lonely years that he had been living on the streets of New York, he had seen and done a lot of things. He had witnessed men and women eating out of garbage cans and urinating on the sidewalk. He had done both himself. He had watched human beings sleeping on subway grates, huddled to stay warm and making rooms for the night out of cardboard boxes. He had done both himself. He had observed people fistfighting on the sidewalk and having sex in doorways. He had done both himself, though more of the former and less of the latter. He had spent more days than he could count panhandling, scraping together enough to buy a pint of anything, drinking to unconsciousness and waking to find his face lying in his own vomit. He barely noticed anymore the countless drug deals, street robberies and prostitution contracts that crossed his field of vision daily. He had seen more in the years he had been homeless than he had ever dreamed possible.

Almost nothing fazed him anymore.

His rough, cracked hand reached into the pocket of his filthy workpants and felt for the key ring. There it was. He had picked it up from the sidewalk, from beside Dr. Karas’s body with the bullets in the back of his brain.

The voices told him to take the key ring lying beside Dr. Karas.

“Tit for tat. Tit for tat. Leave him the elephant, this for that.”

He didn’t want to give up the golden elephant, it was his favorite. But he had to do what the voices commanded. Eliza Blake’s voice had been so calm when she told him to keep an eye on the doctor. The man knew she’d be awfully angry if he disobeyed now.

He carefully placed the precious brass elephant next to the still body. He picked up the shiny ring quickly and scrammed, not wanting the police to catch him.

He hadn’t gone back to Eightieth Street since then. He had stayed farther downtown. He had been eyeing three brownstones on the same block in the upper sixties that were being refurbished, waiting for knockers to be installed. Finally, one by one, they appeared.

One night he went by and was disappointed to find an iron oak leaf affixed to a dark green front door.

The next time he went by, there was a brass scallop shell screwed to the neighboring new home.

Nope.

The third time was the charm. A brass wolf’s head peered out of the deep red door. Tonight he was going to add the wild specimen to his menagerie. Those people weren’t going to like it much. All their hard work, sanding and cleaning and fixing. But a wolf was one he didn’t have yet. He ached to get the spray can out of its hiding place.

Just a few more hours until he could do what he had to do.

Chapter 64

Father Alec read
about the murder of Dr. Leo Karas in the
Star Ledger
. Karas, the story revealed, had played an integral role in the development of the AIDS clinic at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark and had a pro-bono affiliation there.

Father Alec had the feeling one has when reading or seeing something revealed in an official news capacity that one already knows. He felt like an insider. Father Alec wanted to tell someone. But he couldn’t. Instead, he sat quietly in his small office in the rectory behind the cathedral, remembering his first meeting with Bill Kendall.

“Father, I have AIDS.”

The priest had heard it a number of times before, but never from someone so well known and powerful. Yet, in the end, Bill Kendall, multimillionaire anchorman, was the same as any other afflicted child of God. He was going to die. It was not likely to be an easy death. It probably would be painful, degrading and ugly. Father Alec knew that the man sitting beside him knew full well what lay ahead.

Bill Kendall’s face bespoke his anguish. The priest groped for words, and then remembered that this human being needed someone to listen, not necessarily to talk. He was probably eager to tell his story, to let it out. He needed compassion, not advice.

Bill explained that he had just been at the AIDS clinic. His psychiatrist had arranged for him to see a specialist there. Bill was very concerned that no one recognize him and the specialist had sworn that he would protect his identity at all costs. Kendall supposed that he could trust someone whom his psychiatrist recommended. He trusted his doctor.

Bill also told Father Alec that his psychiatrist had prescribed Prozac for the depression that enveloped him, saying that it would take the edge off the psychic pain. Bill said he wasn’t sure if the medication was helping. He still felt miserable. He said he had seen the twin spires of the cathedral when he came out of the hospital and, on impulse, had driven in their direction.

Bill described how he had discovered a lump under his right arm. A diagnosis of lymphoma and AIDS quickly followed. Bill grasped the priest’s hand. Father Alec consciously held tightly and looked steadily into the anchorman’s eyes.

“Do you think we can talk again? It’s helped.”

“Anytime you say.”

Bill looked around the vast cathedral. The priest read his mind.

“Next time, we could make it in my office.”

“But I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”

“Come with me.”

Father Alec led him to the Lady Chapel. It was empty. The priest guided him up behind the marble altar. There was a door hidden from view by the elaborate altarpiece which, like a miniature cathedral itself, spired to the chapel ceiling.

“This leads into one of the rectory dining rooms. No one will see you enter or leave. Just call me first, and we’ll meet here.”

And so they began to meet and talk. It was during one of those talks that Bill mentioned the psychiatrist’s name.

“It just goes to show you, though, that once those nuns and brothers get you in the formative years, they always have a hold. Talking to a psychiatrist could be enough for most people, but to a Catholic, it’s important to cover your bets. That’s why I’m talking to you, just to be on the safe side.”

The two men had smiled at the truth in the words.

“You know, I really like you and would like to have you for a friend. It’s too bad that I’m going to die, just as I’m getting to know you.”

Father Alec hadn’t known what to say to that.

At their next meeting, Father Alec told Bill that he could anoint him with the holy oil of the sick. Bill had gone for the idea eagerly. Behind the secret door, in the hallway between the Lady Chapel and the rectory, was the oak-carved sacristy where the holy oils were kept.

In silence, Father Alec laid his hands on Bill’s head. Then he stuck his thumb into the bottle of blessed oil and made the sign of the cross on Bill’s forehead.